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This week's magazine

19 April 2008

Issue 2652

New Scientist issue 2652 cover
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Editor's picks

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Life

Evolution myths: Evolution produces perfect organisms

Features
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Life

Evolution myths: It doesn't matter if people don't grasp evolution

Features
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Life

Evolution myths: Evolutionary science is not predictive

Features
Evolution myths: Natural selection is the only means of evolution

Life

Evolution myths: Natural selection is the only means of evolution

Features
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Life

Evolution myths: Everything is an adaptation

Features
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Life

Evolution myths: Evolution can't be disproved

Features
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Life

Evolution myths: Evolution is limitlessly creative

Features
Evolution: A guide for the not-yet perplexed

Life

Evolution: A guide for the not-yet perplexed

Features
Histories: Welcome to Fort Plague

Health

Histories: Welcome to Fort Plague

Features
New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Life

Evolution myths: Natural selection leads to ever greater complexity

Features
Carbon trading: dirty, sexy money

Earth

Carbon trading: dirty, sexy money

Features
Hunting for neutrinos under the South Pole

Space

Hunting for neutrinos under the South Pole

Features

Table of contents

News

Wiki lets users create the perfect US president

Life

Wiki lets users create the perfect US president

WHAT sort of person would you like to see running America for the next four years? A website designed to look like the presidential candidates' sites challenges the public around the world to create the ideal candidate from scratch. WikiCandidate ( www.Wikicandidate08.com ) uses collaborative wiki software to give anyone who cares to join in …

News

Technology

Law targeting patent 'trolls' looks set to fail

News

Technology

Gizmo

News

Technology

'Racetrack' memory could replace hard drives and RAM

News

Technology

Websites evolve like living organisms to suit users

News

Life

Worm-on-a-chip boosts understanding of nerves

News

Earth

Hothouse Earth would halt plate tectonics

News

Earth

Fake concrete bat roosts reclaim rainforest

News

Technology

Sensitive military items for sale on eBay

News

Life

Machine detects our decisions before we know them

News

Life

Fossil teeth hint at elephants' watery past

News

Life

Algal sex could spawn malaria vaccine

News

Life

Mighty microbe pulls 100,000 times its bodyweight

News

Space

Atmospheres modelled in soap bubbles

News

Space

Moon's birth changed the length of days on Earth

News

Life

Financial markets driven wild by hormones

News

Space

Solar system 'bounce' may send comets our way

News

Life

Suicide risks from drugs may be exaggerated

News

Life

DNA test needs an international 'yes'

News

Earth

Mysterious striped currents revealed in the oceans

News

Life

Orchid sex trick fools male wasps

News

Soundbites

News

Life

Genes may raise cancer risk for blacks

News

Life

WHO considers global war on alcohol abuse

News

60 Seconds

News

Earth

Californian quake before 2037 almost inevitable

News

Earth

Climate change could save endangered salmon

News

Life

Housework helps combat anxiety and depression

News

Health

Canada to release trial drugs to patients

News

Earth

'Flammable ice' could be mined for fuel

News

Health

Tanzania leads the world in tackling child deaths

News

Health

New Alzheimer's drug takes new approach

News

Opinion

Hunting the elusive Higgs

Technology

Hunting the elusive Higgs

"THE goddam particle." That's what Nobel prizewinner Leon Lederman wanted to call the Higgs boson. In the end, his publisher's commercial instincts won out, and his book on the particle thought to endow the universe with its mass ended up with a rather more grandiose title: The God Particle . It's a name that has …

Opinion

Earth

Editorial: Can carbon capitalism save the world?

Opinion

Commentary: Medical research is still biased

Opinion

Life

Interview: The stroke survivor who trained her own brain

Opinion

Features

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Life

Evolution myths: Evolution produces perfect organisms

Read an extended version of this article, and many more evolution myths, in our online special It's a theme endlessly repeated in wildlife documentaries. Again and again we are told how perfectly animals are adapted to their environment. It is, however, seldom true. Take the red squirrel, which appeared to be perfectly adapted to its …

Features

Life

Evolution myths: It doesn't matter if people don't grasp evolution

Features

Life

Evolution myths: Evolutionary science is not predictive

Features

Life

Evolution myths: Natural selection is the only means of evolution

Features

Life

Evolution myths: Everything is an adaptation

Features

Life

Evolution myths: Evolution can't be disproved

Features

Life

Evolution myths: Evolution is limitlessly creative

Features

Life

Evolution: A guide for the not-yet perplexed

Features

Health

Histories: Welcome to Fort Plague

Features

Life

Evolution myths: Natural selection leads to ever greater complexity

Features

Earth

Carbon trading: dirty, sexy money

Features

Space

Hunting for neutrinos under the South Pole

Features

Regulars

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Feedback

Confusing Iran and Iraq AS IT became clear to many in the US that the Iraq war had been a terrible mistake, a joke began to circulate: the real reason for the attack was that one of the dimmer bulbs in the Bush administration – perhaps George W. himself – had confused Iraq and Iran …

Regulars

Regulars

Letters

Regulars

The last word

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